Review: Indi enters a busy field with Precipice, proving an engaging presence with a bit more growing to do

Precipice proves an engaging callback to mid-90’s post club chill-out music with hints of something deeper rather than the blaring immediacy of the new.

The New Zealand composer and classical pianist Indira Force is a relatively unknown quantity in the UK, being based currently in Berlin and with most of her online exposure having been generated in the southern hemisphere. Flying Nun here release her debut as Indi, an intermittently curious collection of tasteful beats and faintly experimental electronica. In its most imposing moments, it calls back to the late 90’s and the glories of post club chill-out and trip hop.

Force has talked about how songs can demand their own arrangements; the idea that there is, at the heart of any track, a kind of image around which all other elements have to be designed. She brought in a motley band of collaborators for Precipice, and the results feel impressively of a piece. Clearly, at the heart of the production process lay her own very definite ideas about what the final album should become.

‘Airportals’ could so easily be a track from Mezzanine; a looming bassline overlaid with squelchy, electronically reverberating beats. Elsewhere, the composer delivers tricksy song structures in the mould of Julia Holter, but without her sometimes overwhelming arrangements. Wherever possible, Force tries the opposite - to pull back on her mixes, washing elements out to hint at light and shade, rather than allowing too much noise to remove definition.

‘Woman’ lands this balance especially well, only bringing together its midi trumpets, beats, piano and vocals for the finale. It’s the album’s highlight, and a demonstration of the artist’s skill at weaving together textures into a satisfying whole. Her lighter than air vocals closely resemble Emilíanna Torinni’s glassy delivery, but with some of the spikiness of Björk; the quieter moments of the record, particularly ‘Tabelands’, are beautifully, if not especially originally constructed.

And therein lies the problem with Precipice. While it’s always rewarding to hear an album that can skilfully blend together interesting melodies and tasteful arrangements, this is a busy field. Already this month Laura Gibson has released an album of similar vocal tones, while the previously mentioned Julia Holter covered this ground and moved on some years ago. Then there’s Hilary Woods, Madeline Kenney…

Indi may well be the girl with all the gifts. Right now, she’s enjoying testing the boundaries of her art, playing with instrumentation and the structures of composition. If she is to move to the next phase, she will need to find new, more chaotic ground to stake out.